Jolida's Small System Knockout

Jolida of Maryland sure knows how to produce good sound for people with limited budgets. Playing Leonard Cohen's classic "Back on Boogie Street" through iTunes, with all the sonic compromises that Apple's music server imposes on a system, Jolida's Glass FX tube DAC ($350) and Glass FX 25 Integrated hybrid amplifier ($350) still sounded great. This was not toy hi-fi; it was an indisputable portal into the real thing, with a musicality that put to shame some much more expensive systems I encountered at RMAF.

The speakers, the Electrocompaniet Preludes ($1400/pair), cost twice as much as the electronics. But who's complaining? Surely not I, who on a recent visit to Jolida's hardly glamorous factory in China, heard the same or similar equipment on pathetic little speakers with lamp cord used for speaker cable that could not do the electronics even half justice.

Do not EVER buy anything from Jolida. Two capacitors went bad and they kept my amp for over TWO MONTHS and charged me almost $300 to fix it. NO APOLOGY whatsoever except to tell me their "systems weren't the best". $300 for two capacitors. Two months. No contact from them. EVER.